Stacking chairs—that is, chairs of identical configuration adapted for vertical stacking one on top of the other in closely conforming relation—have long been known. Exemplary of the essential configuration of such chairs is the disclosure of Rowland, U.S. Pat. No. 3,278,227, which disclosure is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. But while improvements have been made to various aspects of such chairs over the years, including improvements directed at realizing ever more compactly stackable chairs to maximize the number thereof which may be stacked in a given vertical distance, these improvements have been hampered by the structural requirements for the individual chairs themselves.
More specifically, it is known to be necessary that each stackable chair be capable of meeting certain predefined strength requirements, such as are set forth, for example, by the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (“BIFMA”) and the American National Standards Institute (“ANSI”). Exemplary in these regards are the standards embodied by ANSI/BIFMA X5.1-2002. In consequence of such requirements, the convention in stackable chair design has been to utilize robust materials, especially for the chair's framework. Typically, and as disclosed in the aforementioned patent of Rowland, the framework material of choice has been steel rod of no less than 7/16th inches in diameter. Unfortunately, the heretofore necessary employment of such material has effectively defined a lower limit of no less than 7/16th inches on the stacking thickness—that is, the contribution which each in a plurality of stacking chairs makes to the total height of a stack of such chairs.